Is this possible on Sense UI on the Evo?

[Darth Mo]

OK, we have the feature (I apologize that I can't pull the name up) where we hit the home key from the home screen and it gives you the thumbnails for each individual home screen.

Instead of showing the home screens, is there a way or an app that will show you thumbs of your last apps used instead of just showing the icons for the apps?

It got me wondering because when you return to an app you moved away from, it usually shows the last information that was on the screen, but then quickly switches to the current information if it's changed since last viewing the app. For example, if you're using the music player in the background and go through a few songs, when it first loads it still shows the last song you had up before leaving the app. Then it will jump to the correct song almost instantly. So maybe the "last view" gets cached somewhere?

I just think it would make multi-tasking a bit smoother.

 

[yankees2323]

just hold down the home button and you get the last 8 apps used

 

[Darth Mo]

just hold down the home button and you get the last 8 apps used

Yes, I already mentioned that. I want to know if instead of icons, you can get a thumbnailed screenshot of the apps.

 

[Caitlyn McKenzie]

No, nothing currently does that. It theoretically could be possible, but would require it to screenshot a thumb every time you closed an app, which would probably cause quite a bit of lag.

It does not currently do this, despite your theory. What you thought was a "last view" cache, is actually a cache of the app running itself. The app is loading from a suspended state, and it starts with whatever data it had when it was suspended (think when you put a laptop in suspend, it's similar). Very quickly thereafter the app refreshes its data, and that's when it updates.

 

[milominderbinde]

I Sense that you are wishing for webOS cards?

If you want cards, try the Visual Task Switcher.

This is from the Palm webOS Homebrewer's Guide to Android.

 

[Bujin#IM]

There‘s also an app in the Market called “Itching Thumb“, which provides a card view, including the ability to flick apps off the screen to stop them. It has the added benefit of a scrollable dock for frequently used apps and widgets.

As a former Pre user, I found it pretty interesting.... in practice, I found that is was just as easy to long-press to my most recent apps, as I virtually never need to switch to an app that isn‘t one of my most recent 8.

 

[Darth Mo]

I Sense that you are wishing for webOS cards?

If you want cards, try the Visual Task Switcher.

This is from the Palm webOS Homebrewer's Guide to Android.

Not so much the card system WebOS used because I found that to get too cumbersome once you reached over 5 or 6 cards. It either became inefficient to have to shuffle across 6 or 7 cards to get the one that you wanted or you had to close cards just to keep them manageable.

The exploded view of the last 7 apps used wold be ideal.

 

[Yourdogsdead]

So you want a thumbnail of what the app justlooked like, a save state screenshot basically? There might be some fellow over at XDA that can figure it out.

 

[cloak.n.dagger]

Itching Thumb (Task Manager) - Android app on AppBrain